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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



JAMES LINDSAY GORDON. 

James Lindsay Gordon, author of "Ballads of the 
Sunlit Years," died at his residence, No. 15 West 17th, 
Street, New York City, while this volume was going 
through the press He was born in Virginia January 
9, 1860, and was educated at William and Mary College 
and the University of Virginia, He studied law, and 
was admitted to the bar in 1881. He practised his pro- 
fession in Ciiarlottesville, Va., from that date to 1893, 
serving in the meantime for three years in Virginia 
state Senate, and declining a renomination. In 1893 he 
removed to New York City where he resided and prac- 
tised law up to the date of his death. He served as 
Assistant District Attorney of the City of New York 
under District Attorneys Gardiner and Philbin, and at 
the time of his death was Assistant Corporation Coun- 
sel of New York City. 

He was distinguished for his eloquence as a 
political and forensic speaker ; and delivered addresses, 
among many others before the Alumni Societies of the 
University of Virginia and William and Mary College, 
before the Southern Societies of Atlanta, Georgia, and 
the graduating classes of Randolph Macon College and 
the University of Vermont. 

"Ballads of the Sunlit Years" include a number of 
his fugitive poems, selected and arranged by himself, 
many of which have never before been published. 

The edition is limited to 990 copies. 



BALLADS OF THE SUNLIT YEARS 



Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2011 with funding from 
The Library of Congress 



http://www.archive.org/details/balladsofsunlityOOgord 



BALLADS 



OF THE 



SUNLIT YEARS 



JAMES LINDSAY GORDON 



NEW YORK 

North American Press 
1904 



75 3^'^^ 



UBRARY of CONGRESS 
Two CoplM Received 

NOV 24 1903 

Cooyrieht Entry 

CLASS Oi, XXC. No. 

COPY B. 



^0 



Copyright, 1904 

By James Lindsay Gordon 

New York 



Table of Content^. 

PAGE 

Dedication 

The Golden Spur ii 

Beyond Arvallon 14 

Suspense 17 

The Building of the Fane 19 

A Churchyard Memory 22 

Wheeler at Santiago 25 

With Sir Walter 27 

Unveiled 29 

Lorraine 31 

Gone Seaward -33 

A Ballad of the Prince 35 

The Rose of Yesterday .37 

Dream Gardens -39 

The Woman Taken .41 

A Ballad of Sweet Eyes .42 

A True Love 44 

Over an Old Letter 46 

Predestination 48 

A Virginia Sunset . .50 

Light o' Love 52 

Her Coming 53 

The Sea Kings 55 

Recollections 56 

A Ballad of Meeting . 59 

Departed 61 

The Story of a Flower 63 

6 



PAGE 

A Song in the Night 65 

Longing 66 

The Violin Player 68 

Jim of Biloxi 69 

A Toast 70 

Gaudium Certaminis 72 

For Music 74 

In a Copy of "Arcade Echos" 75 

Father Ryan 76 

Old Love Dreams 77 

The Tryst 79 

On the Tenth Floor 81 

Foreshadowings 82 

At the Sunrise Watch 83 

Within the Port 84 



TO ONE IN ANOTHER COUNTRY 



Where the rain of roses fell 
In the waning of the year, 

Like the chiming of a hell 

Out of some far distant sphere 

Came thy voice, O lost and dear! 

Came the voice ineffable 

All my heart was fain to hear. 

Low and golden, slow and clear 
As a spent wave's seaward swell, 

So it fell upon m,y ear 

Where the rain of roses fell. 

3 



II 

' ' Where art thou and where are they f ' ' 
Breathed its whisper through thy tears, 

"Songs of our diviner day, — 
Ballads of the sunlit years? 

Songs that memory more endears 
As the later skies grow grey, — 
Spun of laughter, hopes and fears. 

Still the listening spirit hears, 

Sighing down life's darkened way. 

Echoes out of sunlit years; 

Where art thou and where are theyf 

III 

Sweet, they are fain of no feet but thine, 
My flowers of song from the shadowed seas 

On which thy life drifts away from mine, 
And so, for answer, I send thee these. 

All their petals are drenched with lees, — 

Wet with dregs of life's wasted wine: 
Sorrow sobs through their melodies. 

Love them or spurn as thy mood may please. 

Many gifts hast thou: here are mine: 
Songs of the sunlit years, from seas 

Whose tides still beat to no feet but thine. 
August, igoj. 



The Golden Spur 

AT last he was in my hand. His rein 

He drew by the river's flow, 
And there, with a joy that was fierce as pain, 
I met my ancient foe. 



I had seen him afar through the summer morn 

Riding toward his fate: 
And now in the place where our feud was born 

I faced the man I hate. 



I had sent my men, twoscore and ten, 
Around on his rearward track, 

So if he turned for the West again 
I wist he would win not back. 



And with thirty horses behind my own 
And thirty swords out drawn, 

I faced my foe as he sat alone 

On his horse in the summer morn. 



He looked where the line of helmets shone 

Just over the tumbling flood 
On men who had made my hate their own 

And who lusted for his blood. 

11 



He turned and looked where the sunshine spilt 

Its gold on the fallow farms, 
To where the crests of the hills were gilt 

With the spears of my men-at-arms. 

And he saw that at last he had found his fate, — 

Had come to the destined hour, 
When the bitter force of a deathless hate 

Was backed by resistless power. 

But not for a moment his eyelids fell, — 

No tremor across him ran: 
I hated him as the Fiend in hell 

But I knew that I faced a man. 

He leaned him down from his saddle bow 

And loosened a golden spur: 
And he cried: "Ye will have m}^ life, I know, — 

Yet take this sign to Her. 

Thus much may a foeman grant his foe, 
How strong though his hate may be: 

And if ye are men, not dogs, I know 
Ye will do thus much for me. 

That when 'neath the sweep of your swords I fall, 

Ye will ride on into the West 
To where she sits in m}^ castle hall, 

With my baby at her breast. 

12 



Ye will tell her or ever my life blood ran 

I sent her the golden spur; 
And tell her I died as befits a man, 

And my last thought was of her." 

I felt the disk of mine eyes grow dim 
And a strangling clutch at my heart, 

And my voice rang over the flood to him, 
"Thy life is thine own. Depart!" 

He plunged his horse in the water's flow, 

As one who rides to a feast, 
And bending his plume to his saddle bow, 

Swept past us into the East. 

And now all the hate of the years comes back- 

A passion that bums like pain; 
And again I am eager upon his track, — 

But shall I trap him again? 

If just once more in my grasp he stand 
He may speak what he list of her. 

But I swear to God that within her hand 
I will lay the golden spur. 



13 



Beyond Arvallon 

OP RING — and a myriad birds awing and violets 

*^ breaking from out the mould, 

Skies glittering fair through a sunsoft air in blended 

glory of blue and gold, 
And skies and sun mingling for one a weft of 

memories manifold. 

In a vanished year was it not here where the flower- 
ing fields and the forest meet. 

On a radiant day of a golden May to breathe whose 
sunshine seemed so sweet, — 

Was it not here, O dear and dear, that I laid a life's 
love at your feet? 

Here, in the spot your heart forgot where never 

again your young feet came. 
After the years that were stained with tears and 

dark with sorrow and seared with shame, 
I have come back on the olden track to pledge a 

lost youth in your name. 

Dear, in the wine of this spring sunshine I drink to 
my youth and the love it knew; 

I pledge a fate whose wearying weight in spite of 
myself has kept me true. 

From the chaliced cup of a flower held up to lips 
that never broke faith with you. 

14 



Back in the night of the world whose Hght is the 
blaze of jewels and gleam of gold, 

Through the flare and flame of the place of shame, 
the market where souls are bought and sold, 

I have sought a face that would drive all trace out 
of my heart of the face of old. 

And the quest was vain; through years of pain, 

through midnights and mornings dark and 

drear. 
One flowerlike face has kept its place, branded of 

God on my heart, and dear 
As a lone star's light in a shadowed night — the 

face whose memory has brought me here. 

What is the power that holds one hour of life un- 
dying though others die? 

I have seen the blaze of a thousand days fade from 
the blue of a cloudless sky 

And just one day of one sun-sweet May shines 
cr3^stal clear in my memory. 

The day that hves through all life gives until life 
drifts through the dreamless gate — 

The deathless morn whose enchanted dawn breaks 
on every life soon or late 

Comes when the soul at earth's holiest goal meets 
the soul that God made its mate. 

15 



Here where the gold of the suns of old floods its 

glory on field and tree, 
Through a dawn of May broke such a day as never 

again mine eyes shall see, — 
With its skies of blue and its joy for you and the 

pain of a life's regret for me. 



16 



Suspense 

(Written when General Gordon's fate ivas in doubt) 

TICTHAT of the light out yonder— 
^^ Our star in the heathen gloom? 
What of the great Commander 

Who was sent to hold Khartoum i^ 
Alone in the heart of a hostile land 

Has England's hero son 
Gone down with the old flag in his hand 

Just as the fight was won? 

Over the breadth of Christendom 

The question rings and runs; 
Ah, will the answer never come 

Through the smoke of the silent guns? 
Hushed into awe and pity 

Men whisper from sea to sea: 
"Nothing we care for the fallen cit}^ 

Its Commander — where is he?" 

England, wake from the slumber 

That has bowed thy head too long; 
Let thy men go out without number, 

Eager and swift and strong; 
Over the wastes of desert sand 

Let the waves of thy vengeance roll; 
Go wrest from the Moslem's treacherous hand 

Thy most heroic soul. 

17 



It may be thou wilt find him 

Dead in the last redoubt, 
With never a foe behind him 

Where the flame of his life went out ; 
It may be in some close tower, 

Or on some leaguered hill, 
Waiting for rescue hour by hour, 

Thy soldier is fighting still. 

But whether he lies in death's embrace 

In the city he tried to save. 
With the flag of England over his face 

And the trenches for his grave; 
Or whether some day when the roses fall 

And autumnal skies are dim, 
With the roaring of guns and the trumpet's call 

His people shall welcome him, — 

Whatever his fate, one thing is sure, — 

A light is in heaven to stay: 
A light to fade from men's sight no more 

Till the suns are passed away: 
Holy and tender, pure and grand. 

The star of his fame shall bloom — 
The fame of the man in that far-off land 

Who won and lost Khartoum! 



18 



The Building of the Fane 

{Read at the unveiling of the Memorial Tablet to 
the Founders of the College of William and Mary, 
October 22, 1901.) 

I. 

'T'HEY had brought it into the wilderness in the 
unforgotten days 
A spark of the fire that fell direct a gift from the 
hand of God, 
And here is the fane that was builded first to hold 
its sacred rays 
Till the glory gleamed upon darkened paths by 
man's feet yet untrod. 
It had lighted the way their fathers came over the 
ocean's foam 
Into the waste of an unknown world that the 
sons should hold in fee; 
It had pointed them through the darkness to the 
gates of Heaven and Home: 
So they made a shrine for its light to shine that 
whoso would might see. 

II. 

Yea, to cherish forever the fire from Heaven this 
fostering fane was built 
That its rays might show through the centuries 
where Freedom's well-springs lay; 

19 



To nurse the hope for which the blood of the 
Martyrs of God was spilt 
In the light that shineth more and more unto the 
perfect day; 
And whoso came to its portal and looked on the 
shining saw 
The hope of the world grow stronger in the years 
that were yet to be, — 
In the rise of Men, in the fall of Kings, in the 
triumph of Truth and Law, 
Till the promise of God should be fulfilled and 
the peoples of earth be free. 



III. 

Brighter the light has glimmered, further has fared 
the flame, 
Stronger the music has sounded of the fathers 
who builded here 
A temple whence should be borne a word, as the 
crowding centuries came, 
B}^ the sons ordained to speak the word that men 
most longed to hear; 
And forth of this fane there issued a message which 
hath sufficed 
To lift the hope of the nations and lighten the 
load they bore, — 

20 



Reiterance of the promise that fell from the Hps of 
Christ, 
Of what should be when His Kingdom comes and 
the bond are free once more. 



IV. 
Who were the men that builded? Their names 
have not flashed afar 
Unto the uttermost ends of earth to be honored 
and sung alway; 
Not theirs the garlands of glory plucked under the 
battle-star, — 
Yet the work they wrought shall not perish, their 
cause shall not pass away; 
For the seed here sown shall have fruitage in the 
kingdoms of earth until 
One great Republic rises from the ruin of crown 
and throne; 
And as long as the heart of Freedom holds a single 
drop to spill, 
The stone that the builders lifted here shall never 
be overthrown. 



21 



A Churchyard Memory 

TN the old summer, love, long past and over, 

We walked into this churchyard, you and I, 
Through the soft sunshine and the blossoming 
clover. 
Above our heads a blue and cloudless sky; 
We paused within the dead men's marble city, 
Where tombs gleam white and long green grasses 
wave, 
And here you laid a flower, in heavenly pity, 
Over a new-made grave. 



A little child's grave, with sod newly broken. 
Looked up to us in this most piteous place: 

And though no word between us here was spoken, 
I knew the heart thought written on your face; 

You took the blossoms, tenderly and slowly, 
Out of 3^our bosom where they lay at rest, 

And placed them, with a kiss serene and holy, 
Above the babv's breast. 



And then you turned to me with eyes far sweeter 
Than ever yet my eyes had seen them shine, 

And with your pure soul sadder but completer 
You laid 3^our flower-soft hand, dear love, in 
mine ; 

22 



And thus we left the quiet spot together, — 

Each young heart touched with love's divinest 
pain, 
And passed through July sunshine and soft weather 
Into the world again. 

I did not know what sad-eyed, anguished weeper 
Had dropped hot tears above her darling dead; 

I knew not what they named the little sleeper 
Who lay at peace in that deserted bed; 

But this my soul knew well, that in the hour 
You laid those flowers above him long ago, 

I loved you with the purest, tenderest power 
A human heart can know\ 

And so the knowledge that your hands had laid 
them 
In this sad place so reverently down, 
Gave to those flowers the meaning that has made 
them 
To me the emblems of love, sorrow-crowned ; 
And since we parted in the summer's splendor 

The purest thoughts my fancy ever weaves 
Are fraught with odours, passionate and tender, 
Of dead geranium leaves. 

Sometimes when the bright skies we loved are 
golden 
With the last glories of the dying day, 

23 



My weary feet again come down the olden 

Place to this spot where once your blossoms lay ; 

And then, O love, with bitter grief unspoken 
Comes back the longing for my youth's lost hours. 

As where I stand, with all life's purpose broken, 
The grave is crowned with flowers. 

But I believe in some divine to-morrow 

We yet shall walk together, hand in hand. 
Our eyes alight with joy and void of sorrow, 

Through the green gardens of the Golden Land: 
And something tells me that perchance it may be, J 

When once our feet have pressed that emerald 
sod, 
Our loving eyes may find the unknown baby 
Safe in the arms of God! 



24 



Wheeler at Santiago 

INTO the thick of the fight he went, palhd and 

sick and wan, 
Borne in an ambulance to the front, a ghostly wisp 

of a man; 
But the fearless soul of a warrior, approved in the 

long ago. 
Went to the front in that ambulance and the body 

of "Fighting Joe." 

Out from the front they were coming back, smitten 

of Spanish shells: 
Wounded boys from the Vermont hills and the 

Alabama dells. 
"Put them into this ambulance — I'll ride to the 

front," he said; 
And he climbed to the saddle and rode right on — 

that little old ex-Confed. 



From end to end of the long blue ranks rose up 

the ringing cheers. 
And many a powder-blackened face was furrowed 

with sudden tears. 
As with flashing eye and gleaming sword and hair 

and beard of snow, 
Into the hell of shot and shell rode little old 

"Fighting Joe." 

25 



Worn with fever and racked with pain he could not 

stay away, 
For he heard the song of the yesteryears in the 

deep-mouthed cannon's ba}-^: 
He heard in the calhng song of the guns there was 

work for him to do 
Where his country's best blood splashed and flowed 

'round the old Red, White and Blue. 

Fevered body and hero heart! Your countrv's 

heart to you 
Beats out in love and gratitude and to each brave 

boy in blue 
Who stood or fell 'mid the shot and shell and 

cheered in the face of the foe, 
As, wan and white, to the thick of the fight rode 

little old "Fighting Joe." 



26 



With Sir Walter 

TXriTH book and scrip and staff in hand, 

A pilgrim hurried fast 
Across the shadowy borderland 
That parts us from the past. 

I go into a fairer land, 

(Said he) than here we know, 
A country with a magic strand 

Left to me long ago. 

Great castles stand upon its hills 

With banners floating free; 
The wild deer roams beside its rills 

Under the greenwood tree. 



Across its verdant valleys shine 
The bright suns of romance. 

Its nights are gay with wassail- wine. 
Its days with joust and dance. 



Fair faces gleam like jewels there 
Changeless throughout the years, 

On mailed cavaliers who bear 
Love tokens on their spears. 

27 



Far off I see the tourney gleam, 
I hear the trumpets call: 

I see the struggling pennons stream 
Along the leaguered wall. 

I hear the love songs chiming clear 
Beneath the donjon keep; 

I catch the glint of helm and spear, 
As ever on they sweep — 

Brave cavalcades of chivalry — 
Across the land I know, — 

The land Sir Walter gave to me 
And all who care to go. 



28 



Unveiled 

pEAL out, clear bells, from tower and steeple, 

*T To-day the triumph of a people 

Who raise for future ages' ken 

Under this sapphire arch of beauty 

The image of incarnate duty 

Supreme among the sons of men. 

With roll of drums and flash of banners, 
Up from the Southland's bright savannahs, 
Down from her mountains blue and old, — 
From hill and plain and field and river 
That shrine his memory forever 
We come to lift the Heart of Gold. 

Long since our sorrow passed as passes 
The shadow from the waving grasses: 
Sealed are the fountains of our tears; 
Upon the midnight of our sorrow 
Broke long ago a brighter morrow 
Whose promise gilds the future years. 

But a whole people's deep affection 
Clings with all tenderest recollection 
Round the great leader, firm and true, 
Whose faith through darkness never tired, 
Gentle as Sidney- , brave as Bayard, 
Pure as man ever knew. 

2» 



Not nursing the old bitter passion, 
Not gathering in the old stern fashion, 
Not mourning for a Nation's fall, — ■ 
But that he typed our motive clearest, 
But that he was our best and dearest, 
But that in him was centred all 

Most noble in the aims we cherished 
Most holy in the hopes that perished, 
We set this sign of him on high, 
And voice a challenge to the nations 
To point from all time's generations 
One worthier immortahty. 

Others will keep throughout the ages 
Brave names blood-written on the pages 
That tell how fame is lost and won; 
But splendent through our Southern story, 
Love-bound and set about with glory — 
Mid shining stars a blazing sun, — 

One name as long as stars shall thicken 
In heaven, — as long as seasons quicken. 
Or rivers set toward the sea, 
Will symbol to the South forever 
Supremest faith and high endeavor, 
And that one name is Lee. 



30 



Lorraine 

OONNY LORRAINE, have you forgot 

The time we walked o'er the morning lea? 
I still keep the blue forget-me-not 

That you took from your hair and gave to me. 
Would 3'ou like to walk those ways again 

With me at your side in the morning time? 

Do you ever think of your youth's sweet prime, 
And your young boy-lover, Bonny Lorraine? 

Ah, well I remember the time we stood 
By the glancing river when day was done, 

And the whispering trees in the dim old wood 
Turned crimson and gold in the setting sun: 

AVhen your heart and your lips and your arms were 
fain 
To cling to me there as your life's one love — 
While the stars came out in the skies above, — 

Do 3^ou remember it, Bonny Lorraine? 

Surely your heart could not forget 

The night when I bade you a last farewell; 

Your long, dark lashes with tears were wet, 

And your anguish more than your lips could tell ; 

How you kissed me there as I stood in the rain, 
And held me fast while you bade me go, — 
With your desolate, golden head bowed low; 

I know you remember, Bonny Lorraine. 

31 



Across the street where the music swells 

You glide through the throng in the shadowy 
dance. 

In your ears the sound of your marriage bells — 
In your heart the dream of the old romance; 

I see you glimmer across the pane — 

The jewels ablaze in your shining hair, — 
And the form of another beside you there, 

But I do not envy him now, Lorraine. 

Let him bow down low at your royal feet, — 
Let him sing love's song if it brings him joy; 

I sang it once and I found it sweet 

In the daA^s when you charmed me — a foolish boy ; 

But I never shall waken the old refrain, 
Its beautiful muvsic is almost hushed: 
My heart was bruised but it was not crushed, 

And it loves you no longer, Bonny Lorraine. 

Dance on while the music throbs and beats: 

Drink memory to death in your wedding wine; 

He knows not your life whose quick glance meets 
The false, sweet light in your eyes divine. 

I can look on you now with no more pain, — 
On your fair proud face, in your splendid eyes, — 
Then looking up to yon starlit skies 

Thank God that I lost you, Bonny Lorraine. 



32 



Gone Seaward 

H. G. D. 

TF to carry beyond us a sotil undaunted, if to leave 
among us who saw him go 

A name that is brighter because he bore it, — in- 
wrought with honor as white as snow — 

If these are worthy the Hope Eternal, then hope 
must follow his flight I know. 

If to stretch a hand to the hands that needed, if to 
soften the path unto weary feet, — 

If fair deeds done in life's silent places, because such 
deeds to his heart were sweet, — 

If these make light on the shadowed waters he has 
gone where a thousand splendors meet. 

On the shadowed waters whence comes no answer 
to the broken questions we ask in vain; 

On the sea whose tides ebb out forever and beat not 
back to our feet again 

Has the bright life passed that to those who loved 
him only in passing had given pain. 

But across those waters no darkness gathers over 
the way that thy soul hath fled 

So deep that my love may not follow after when the 
dirge is done and the prayers are said, — 

Follow and cling and abide forever until I, too, 
follow, O dear and dead. 

33 



And I lift my face to the far-off heaven from these 
old fields where our feet once trod 

Life's ways together in days long over, with sandals 
of hope and of courage shod, 

And pray that the paths that are here divergent ma}-" 
blend in the fields of the peace of God. 



34 



A Ballad of the Prince 

{To A. C. Sivinburne.) 

nPHOU who through our harsh, unlovely years 

Sendeth a wild strain of music yet — 
Thou who weavest out of smiles and tears 

Melodies men never may forget; 

Voice of England's rapture and regret 
Ringing golden through an ashen time, — 

Fame upon thy brow the sign hath set; 
"Prince of all the radiant realm of rhvme." 

Freedom falters, worn with doubts and fears. 

Wearied with the burden and the fret; 
Still thy song can staunch her falling tears, — 

Soothe her agony and bloody sweat; 

She, too, crowns thee with a coronet 
Leafed with laurel from her sunniest clime, — 

Hails thee with glad eyes and lashes wet, 
Prince of all the radiant realm of rhyme. 

To the dusk of death have passed thy peers, 

To the shadowy shore whereon are met 
Shapes and splendors from the vanisht years 

Past our praise or prayers or regret; 

One last light is glimmering on us yet 
From the supreme heights of song sublime, — 

Thine the shining star that hath not set, 
Prince of all the radiant realm of rhyme. 

35 



Envoi. 

Poet, thy hands yet hold the amulet 

That made thee from the sweet and sacred time 
When love and mnsic by thy cradle met, 

Prince of all the radiant realm of rhvme. 



36 



The Rose of Yesterday 

Each morn a thousand roses brings, you say; 
Yes, hut where leaves the Rose of Yesterday?'' 

Omar Khayyam. 

"LTE sang it while its petals still 

By morning dews were pearled, 
In perfect numbers, set to thrill 

The springtime of the world. 
The roses of seven hundred years 

Have flamed and passed away 
Since Omar steeped in golden tears 

The Rose of Yesterday. 

And since a master hand awoke 

That deathless chord of pain, — 
That sweetest song that ever spoke 

Of what comes not again, 
The magic of the music yet 

Can move a world, grown gray 
With countless sorrows, to regret 

The Rose of Yesterday. 

It is the flower whose scented flame 

No after years can bring: 
It is the bloom that blends one name 

With life's most golden spring; 

37 



It died ere blight of change could chill 

The bosom where it lay, 
And there in dreams it flowers still, — 

The Rose of Yesterday. 

For me, beneath these western skies, 

For thee, at Naishapur, 
It held life's tenderest memories 

Because it flowered for Her! 
So Omar still for thee and me, 

In the same deathless way, 
May blossom through Eternity, 

The Rose of Yesterday. 



38 



Dream Gardens 

OflE said she would build her House of Dreams 

where the autumn fields begin 
To stretch away from these singing seas if her ship 

should ever come in: — 
She would plant 'neath its sapphire towers agleam 

in the radiant air 
A red rose Garden for loving and a white rose 

Garden for prayer. 

And the house would be so sacred she would call 

it the House of Peace: 
For the music that faith alone can make in its 

chambers should not cease, 
And the sweetest winds would blow through them 

fraught with the fragrance rare 
Of a red rose Garden for loving and a white rose 

Garden for prayer. 

Here in the waste of the world that house our 

hearts can never win, 
But over the tides that never saw a returning sail 

drift in, — 
Dear Girl, have you found the House of Peace and 

the roses blooming there 
In a red rose Garden for loving and a white rose 

Garden for pra3^er? 

39 



I never may reach the mystic shore where your 
radiant palace gleams, 

But many a night by the moonlit seas I have pic- 
tured in my dreams 

How gently a Heavenly Bridegroom's hands are 
laid on the golden hair 

Where a red rose Garden for loving fades to a 
white rose Garden for prayer. 



40 



The Woman Taken 

Hold your phylacteries back, lest she should touch 
them; 
Turn from her one by one; 
Hold back your hands, too, lest her clasp should 
smutch them — 
Fors^iveness is there none. 



Never again with you in life's high places 

May she dare stand who for one moment fell: 

Let nothing save the scorn on bitter faces 
Shadow her way to hell. 

Ah, yet long since no high priest but the Master 
Bent down above another whom your band 

Found whelmed and wrecked in life's supreme 
disaster 
And traced upon the sand 

Some unknown words beside that silent shore, 

Then raised the fallen, brushed her tears aside: 
Soothed and forgave her — bade her sin no more, — 
And Him ve crucified. 



41 



A Ballad of Sweet Eyes 

T IKE the lights that shine out of heaven 

When the sun-god's car does down, 
Like the gleaming of meteors driven 

Through the arch of the midnight's crown 
Like the lights in a wild flower's chalice 

When the June sun sets them free, 
Are the lights in the eyes of Alice 

That gleam through the dusk on me. 

Like the bloom of a pans}^ lifted 

Where never a foot goes by; 
Like the color where clouds are rifted 

That shows in a violet sky; 
Like the blue where the ebb-tide rallies 

The spent waves back to the sea 
Is the bloom in the eyes of Alice 

That gleam through the dusk on me. 

Like pearls from the deeps of the ocean, 

Like the flash of the lights that shine 
On the wings of a bird in motion, 

Like the glimmer of stars through wine: 
Like the rain drops on morning valleys. 

Or the dews on a twilight lea. 
Are the tears in the eyes of Alice 

That gleam through the dusk on me. 

42 



Envoi. 

Poets, in hovel or palace, 

I think that no eyes there be 

As sweet as the eyes of Alice 

That gleam through the dusk on me. 



43 



A True Love 

T HAVE come back to my first love, to my con- 

stant love, the sea; 
To the beautiful face and the ceaseless voice of 

miusic and mystery 
From the weary wastes of the inland ways, from 

the homes and haunts of pain 
I have brought a tired life back to lay it down on 

her shrine again. 

The dust of the years is over my heart, the snows 

of the years in my hair, 
But a flutter of youth thrills through my veins to 

behold and find her fair; 
To watch the sparkle and gleam of her face, to 

hear her voice divine, 
And drink the balm of her breath that thrills the 

pulse of my heart like wine. 

What if the years have been bitter and the mile- 
stones marked with shame — 

Have they not brought me back to her, and is she 
not still the same, — 

The one unchanging, steadfast, stainless love of 
my younger day 

Whose perfect voice never breathed a hope a 
faithless heart could betray.? 

44 



O, my truest love, my constant love, when the 

burden of life is done, 
Into thine arms let me sink to sleep as sinks the 

westering sun, 
Lulled at last to rest by a voice that never has 

lied to me, — 
In death as in life thy lover, my heart to thy 

heart, O Sea! 



45 



Over An Old Letter 

''There hangs about thee, could the soul's sense tell, 
An odour as of love and of love's doom." 

Relics. 

T LIFT it from the place where it has hidden 

Out of the Hght away these many years; 
I read her letter o'er and tears unbidden 

Spring into eyes that long have known no tears ; 
Old dreams come to me, long forgotten fancies 

Of days when youth had love and hope to friend, 
As reading o'er the best of life's romances, 

I find "Your Little Sweetheart" at the end. 

Outside the open door a bird is singing 

His first sweet song unto the morning sky: 
Inside, deep in a man's heart thoughts are springing 

That have lain sleeping since his youth went by; 
The bird's wild song is from his throat outpealing. 

As though the song his very throat would 
rend, — 
No song can tell the memories o'er me stealing 

At reading those three words there at the end. 

"Your Little Sweetheart!" All the sweet, sad 
story 

With fond remembrance to my being cries: 
There comes a face with hair in amber glory 

Tangled across the gleam of sunny eyes: 

46 



Through time's dim halls a song rings low and 
tender, 
in whose clear strain two loving voices blend: 
Ah, how they bring back youth's enthralling 
splendor — 
Those words, "Your Little Sweetheart," at the 
end. 

Through the open door I turn my face to seaward, 

Where morning winds across the waters blow: 
The singing bird is flying far to leeward, 

Just as hope left me in the long ago — 
A hope that once has gone can come back never: 

The chain is broken that no hand can mend: 
Her hand will rest in mine no more forever 

That wrote "Your Little Sweetheart " at the end. 

I lay aside the time-stained yellow letter. 

My Little Sweetheart, my last link to thee: 
Whether it all were for the worse or better, 

May God be with thee whereso'er thou be: 
And howsoever much my feet may falter 

May thy path lead where radiant roses bend, — 
For thou wilt be what only death can alter — 

My Little Sweetheart to the bitter end. 



47 



Predestination 

TVrOW this is the fate of man since Eve had words 

of old with the Snake, 
That some of us fall asleep in sin in eternal pain 

to awake; 
So we scourge each other with rods of fear for the 

things our fathers knew; 
But if man so punish his brother man now what 

will the Lord God do? 

Lo, thou art ruined and doomed and damned from 
thy bitter hour of birth 

By the pallid souls and scorpion tongues that 
people hell upon earth; — 

Doomed and damned for the scarlet sins of a thou- 
sand years ago! 

But if man know^ his brother's finish thus, now 
what does the Lord God know? 

There are span-long babes that scorch in hell be- 
cause Eve fooled with the Snake! 

And the blistered souls of a million years still 
writhe in the Burning Lake; 

And the Devil grins through the endless ages over 
the yelling crew! 

O, if man thus torture his brother man, now what 
will the Lord God do? 

48 



If one might lift to the heights of heaven a cry 

that was not in vain 
Why the woman's hour with the Snake had doomed 

her children to deathless pain, 
And the lips Divine should answer the question 

cried from the lips of clay, 
Now what would a God most Just and Merciful — 

what would the Lord God sav? 



A Virginia Sunset 

/^UT from the clouds that enfold and hide the 
^^^ olden 

Crests of the hills in the silence of the west, 
Lightening the valleys strikes one long and golden 

Ray from the sun-god as he sinks to rest. 

Straight through the pathway of cloud the ray has 
rifted, 
Through the dense shadows that shroud the 
dying day, 
Conies a wind that blows until all the clouds are 
lifted 
And the azure opens and the shadows flee away. 



Pure and serene in the stainless fields of heaven 
Over the splendor of the sunset and far 

Westward in the skies whence the heavy clouds are 
driven 
Glitters the radiance of the vesper star. 

From the last kiss of the sun upon the mountains, 
From the far spaces where the wings of Night 
unfurl 
Stream up the skies like the gleam of many foun- 
tains 
Sprayings of jasper and amethyst and pearl 

50 



Until far up they blend into one golden 
Sea, past whose waters if a man once trod, 

He should see surely splendors but beholden 
Onlv in the Citv of the Saints of God. 



51 



Light 



<ove 



"pROM out a sad life as you went, 

So soft your footsteps fell, 
No bitter pang of parting lent 
Its pain to our farewell. 

Lightly as laughter leaves the lips, 
Or blood a w^ound that bleeds; 

Noiselessly as a snake that slips 
Away into the weeds 

You passed, but left me not bereft; 
\ For, Sweet, I do not wait 

Hopeless, as one whose house is left 
Unto him desolate. 

Heart-fires went with you which for me, 
Before their flame grew cold, 

Made discord sound like melody 
And merest clay seem gold. 

Let us forgive, let us forget, 

As the swift seasons roll; 
Just in my flesh your white fangs met, 

You did not scar my soul. 



52 



Her Coming 



T IFT up your hair a moment, love, let me catch 

breath and see 
If the world that I remember is the world it used 

to be; 
Is this indeed the same sad earth it seemed an 

hour ago 
Before my lips had pressed their joy on lips that 

answer so? 
And am I he who felt this moonlight scorch his life 

till you 
Sank in the arms that hold you while a hundred 

hopes came true? 



A little hour ago my heart was numb with grief 

and pain: 
Each red rose was a blood drop of some hope that 

time had slain; 
This moonlight seemed a ghastly shroud wrapping 

my buried years 
Each dew-enf olden lily was a memory bathed in 

tears ; 
Like funeral lamps that flicker the far stars' 

spectral flame 
Shone down a shrouded heaven — and then, O love, 

you came. 

53 



And now the world is golden as the asters at our 

feet, 
And the moonlight is a magic sea whose tides are 

pure and sweet; 
The roses are flower-angels and the lilies pure as 

they — 
And stars flame from a stainless sky whose clouds 

have passed away. 
A change I never dreamed would come is over 

earth and sea 
Since God has lit the world with love, my love, 

for vou and me. 



54 



The Sea Kings 



QINCE the Golden Hind went 'round the Horn 

and circled a world unknown, 
Wherever the ocean tides have beat or the winds 

of heaven have blown; 
From the sunrise seas to the sundown seas by 

storms into spindrift whirled 
The sons of the men who sailed with Drake have 

ruled the water-world. 

And whether they sail from Plymouth Hoe or 

out of the Golden Gate 
They are brethren ever linked heart to heart b}^ 

the chain of resistless fate; 
iVnd the quenchless ardor to rule the seas which 

time can never slake 
Makes the same blood race through Dewey's veins 

that throbbed from the heart of Drake. 

And all the way out of Trafalgar down into Manila 
Bay 

The Anglo-Saxon has sailed and fought and strug- 
gled and won his way; 

And wherever the tides of God may beat and the 
winds of God may blow 

It will be tomorrow as it is today and it was in 
the Long Ago. 

0.5 



Recollections 

I. 

O EMEMBERING her 'neatli earlier skies 

With April winds astir 
Existence gains a fairer guise 
Remembering her. 

In golden noons of days that were 

I hear her voice's melodies 
Blending with flute and dulcimer. 

Closed are the long-lashed violet eyes 

Asleep this many a year; 
Known onty of the tears that rise 

Remembering her. 



11. 

The way was sweet whereon she trod 
Where glad and sad things meet; 

Though sorrow was her staff and rod 
The way was sweet. 

Her flower of faith bloomed so complete 

She hardly felt upon earth's sod 
The thorns that pierced her feet. 

56 



Through all her young Hfe's period. 

In light and dark, in field and street, 
With fragrance of her faith in God 

The wav was sweet. 



III. 

I may not say what skies have bent 

Above her newer day, — 
If peace is on the way she went 

I may not say. 

Nor lips that sob nor lips that pray, 
When prayers and tears are spent, 
Have told us of that way; 

But blent with her was a content 
Gone since she went away; 

What sweeter sacred things were blent 
I may not say. 



'■&•- 



IV. 

Remembering her in that dead time, 

The wings of sorrow stir 
My heart to weave this simple rh3^me, 

Remembering her. 

67 



The pureness of the things that v/ere 

Used vineHke round her Hfe to cUmb 
My verse cannot aver: 

But all the bells of memory chime 

And in their strain I hear 
The music of life's golden prime 

Rememberino^ her. 



58 



A Ballad of Meeting 

/^UT of the sunlit years, Christine, 
Into a new day grey and cold. 
You come my boyhood's discrowned queen. 

With your lips yet red and your hair yet gold; 

With the same sweet charm in each clinging fold 
Of your silken garment's changing sheen; 

But my pulse stirs not for my heart's grown old 
And the grey of the world is over the green. 

You bring old dreams to my brain, Christine, 

Dreams half forgotten and hopes half told; 
Dreams that would waken your smiles. I ween, 

Hopes that the late A^ears do not hold; 

They were born when we walked ere the suns 
grew cold 
Through the sunlit years with faith between, 

But they died long since and I am grown old 
And the grey of the world is over the green. 

What do you want in my life, Christine, 
Now that so many sad years have rolled 

Over our lives since you walked serene 

To the market where lives are bought and sold 
And bartered the worth of a woman's soul 

For the gilded ashes of things unclean? 

Ah well, farewell: my heart has grown old 

And the grey of the world is over the green. 

59 



Envoi. 

O, the lips may be red and the hair be gold 
And the charm of the body remain, Christine, 

But they hold no heart when they lose the soul 
And the grey of the world is over the green. 



60 



Departed 

Beatrice is gone up into high heaven 
The kingdom where the Angels are at peace. 

Dante. 

r^ LOSE down the coffin lid and come away, 
^^ We cannot help her an}^ more: for now, 
Albeit, there lies the beautiful cold clay. 

The sweet sad mouth, the peaceful pallid brow. 
She is not there, but far beyond all traces 

Of thought or speech silently she has gone — 
With raptured eyes that look on happier faces 

Rising like stars on death's eternal morn. 

Yet with the semblance of her lying there, 

The old, faint smile still lingering on the lips; 
The old, faint fragrance in the silken hair 

Whose golden gleam death's blight could not 
eclipse — 
We cannot realize she has departed 

Unto a land where pain and sorrows cease. 
Up to the fair fields of the happy-hearted — 

The kingdom where the Angels are at peace. 

White as the soul that loved their stainless bloom. 
The Lenten lilies wither on her breast, 

Dying in silence: and their faint perfume — 
Souls of dead flowers — ascends in fragrant quest 

61 



Of their sweet sister spirit; but O, never 

Will her hands hold them to her heart again, 

Who passed tonight beyond the shadowy river 
From all earth's flowers and from all earth's pain. 

Ah close the lid : it is too late for prayers, 

Not all our tears can blind the bitter truth; 
God's hand hath taken almost unawares 

The last lily in the waste fields of our youth. 
But if the immortal spirit finds His bosom 

A refuge where all griefs and weeping cease, 
We know tonight that there is one more blossom 

In the kingdom where the Angels are at peace. 



62 



The Story of a" Flower 

T WAS a flower of the field that grew 

In the flush of a summer time long gone b}^ 
Under soft skies of a turquoise blue, 



I was plucked by fingers slender and white 
Just at the close of my sunniest day; 

And all through the hours of one summer night 
In the silken hair of a sfirl I lav. 



I remember the sound of viol, and horn, 

I remember bright lights and a crowded room, 

And how in the roseate flush of morn 
A man's lips brushed my bloom. 

And then I was lifted from out of my place 
In the twilight of morning cool and dim, — 

One moment held to a pale, sweet face, 
And kissed and given at last to him. 

And he owns me now and he loves me yet; 

Often and over he has told me so; 
But ever I long with a soft regret 

For the blue of the skies that I used to know. 

63 



Withered and old, with my fragrance fled, 

A ghost am I from a svimmer land 
Where all the flowers of my day are dead, 

And 3^et I wish I could understand 

What it means when one talks of a life's despair? 

Why over my ashes the tears should flow? 
And where is that girl with the silken hair 

Who kissed me one summer night long ago? 



64 



A Song in the Night 

TXTHERE have you been, Hermione, 

Through the long, long lapse of the years, 
Over what dim, mysterious sea 
Into what radiant spheres? 

What have the sweet hands found to do- 
On whom have the pure eyes shone, — 

Since we looked on the white, still face of you 
And knew that the soul had flown? 

Last night, as I watched your fountain fling 

Its tears in the moonlit air, 
A note from a song you used to sing 

Drifted down from somewhere. 

It was sung b}^ your voice, Hermione, 
My heart knew the bell-like strain 

That chimed through the silent night to me 
A blending of love and pain. 

And it told my spirit that after all 

Your soul has not wandered far: 
And it sorrows still for the tears that fall 

In the shadows of this our star. 

It was memory's message, Hermione, 

In the tenderest song we knew; 
O, when will you sing again to me, 

And how may I answer vou? 



Longing 

T SIT and dream o'er a city street 
Choked with the drifted snow; 
And it's O, to be by a riverside 

In a country that I know! 
It's O, to walk in the winding ways 

Where the grass is green on the sod — 
To see just a little less of men, 

Just a little more of God! 

I remember a forest far away 

Whose aisles are cool and dim; 
And there His voice has spoken to me 

And my soul has answered Him; 
In the scent of flowers, in the song of birds, 

In the whispering south wind's breath, 
He has spoken to me of life's mystery 

And the secrets of birth and death. 

But the voice that reaches the spirit's ear 

Through the winds and flowers of the fields 
Is lost in this endless rush of men, 

This ceaseless clamor of wheels: 
And the soul grows sick with doubts and fears, 

And the heart grows numb with pain, 
As we wonder if ever the olden faith 

Can lighten our lives again. 



It's 0, for the music oi lark and thin.'?h 

And the wandering waters flow, — 
It's O, for the shaded summer lanes 

Where the sweet, shy violets grow! 
My heart is yearning to find again 

The ways that my boyhood trod ; 
To know just a little less of men, 

And a little, more of God. 



67 



The Violin Player 

pROM the heart of a golden vioHn 

That was fashioned in olden ^^ears 
Come strains of divinest melody, 

Jewelled with smiles and tears; 
The lilting of lutes hushed long ago 

In the fair Italian lands 
On the silence breaks as the violin wakes 

To the touch of a master's hands. 



We hear the fluting of forest birds 

In the wild wood dusk and dim; 
And the choiring of the morning stars 

And the young-eyed Cherubim! 
We hear the waters of far-off seas 

Wash over their silver sands, 
As the mellow violin sobs and sings 

To the touch of a master's hands. 

Out of this woven web of sound 

Grow clear within sight and reach 
Glad aspirations and gladder dreams 

That never before found speech; 
And life seems sweeter and faith completer — 

Wide open Love's portal stands, 
And we walk therethrough while the violin sings 

To the touch of a master's hands. 

68 



Jim of Biloxi 



"J 



It is graven into the granite wall 
Where the monument rises fair 
Into the soft Virginian air 
Among a hundred comrades' names, — 
Their country's heritage,— and Fame's. 

Jim , of Biloxi. Nothing more. 

Naught of his name or his fame is sure, 
Save that down where the river ran 
And the regiments struggled man to man, 
An humble son of the fighting South 
Gave his life at the musket's mouth. 

Perchance where the Sunflower River flows 
By forests of jessamine and rose, — 
Or where the Gulf Stream washes far 
Its tides of blue to the vesper star, 
Some one waited with prayers and tears 
For Jim , of Biloxi, these many years. 

Life and Name and Cause all lost; 

Least and last of the mightiest host 

That ever wrote in the blood of men 

A dream that will never be dreamed again ,- 

Gone like the strain that the bugles blew, 

Jim , of Biloxi, heaven shelter you! 

69 



"H 



A Toast 

ERE'S to our first love's eyes!" The feast 
Grows strangely calm and still; 
The jest on laughing lips has ceased, 

The riot hushed, until 
Over the wild, wine-sated throng 

A deathlike silence lies; 
What was it hushed the ribald song? 
"Here's to our first love's eyes!" 



Out of the mists of many years 

Around this board they gleam,- — 
Lightened with laughter, dim with tears, 

Seen through a waking dream; 
Black as the raven's glancing wing, 

Blue as the April skies, — 
Through silken lashes glistening — 

Here's to our first love's eyes! 

Ah, though they closed upon our view 

To nevermore unclose. 
What after-seasons ever knew 

Eyes that were sweet as those? 
And though they cause worn hearts to throb 

And make vain memories rise, 
Choke back the bitter pain and sob; — 

Here's to our first love's eyes. 

70 



Around this board the beards are gray 

The hearts and passions cold: 
And eyes have shone and passed away 

And love's been bought and sold 
Along the wa3^s our feet have trod, 

Yet boyhood's faith still cries 
To those on earth, to those with God, 

"Here's to our first love's eves!" 



71 



Gaudium Certaminis 

, {Japan Speaks) 

T^HE time has come. We are going into the 
•*• battle: 

Hark to the caissons rumbUng through the dawn, 
And far on the Corean hills the muskets rattle, 

And the sound of the feet of the horses rushing on ; 

It has come at last — the time for which we waited 

That shall make amends for all the protesting 

years, 

And the hunger of hate and the fury of fight be sated 

In a tempest of fire and tears. 

Sound of sabres on skulls that crunch and quiver, — 
Thud of bullets on breasts that stagger and reel : 
Torrents of blood that splash in a crimson river 
Through crash of cannon and clash of shivering 
steel ; 
Struggling horses and dying men with faces 
Black with the dust of battle and blind with 
fight,— 
And locked in one of Time's Titanic embraces— 
The Jap and the Muscovite. 

It will be worth the years that have gone o'er us 
(The years through which we have made protest 
in vain) 

72 



To listen at last to the cannon's thundering chorus 
And bathe to the lips in the wash of the scarlet 
rain, — 
With thousands dropping to death like slaughtered 
cattle, 
Of mine and of thine — of the Jap and the Musco- 
vite; 
Let us alone — we are going into the battle — 
And God defend the right. 

Feb. 13, 1904. 



73 



For Music 

T AST night I wandered in dreamland 

In the starHghted dusk and the dew: 
And I met where the starshine lay whitest 

O'er the valleys a vision of you: 
Your cold hands were laden with lilies, 

On your breast there were roses and rue: 
And your eyes were adroop with a sorrow unspoken. 

For the dreams that never come true. 

Up rose the white moon in the heaven, 

In the heaven of the dear times we knew: 
And a mocking-bird sang through the silence 

A music that thrilled m}^ heart through: — 
But 3^our voice did not echo his singing, — 

There seemed but one thing you could do: 
'Twas to drop from your lashes your tears on the 
lilies 

For the dreams that never come true. 

O, the lilies of dreamland, Beloved, 

With your tears on their petals like dew, 
Are the flowers whose fragrance forever 

Must sweeten all paths I pursue: 
Dream lilies, dream tears and dream music 

Are all that are left me of you, — 
Are all that are left of the sweetest and saddest 

Of the dreams that never come true. 

74 



In a Copy of ''Arcade Echoes" 

(Jo T. L. 11'.) 

'T^T'ITH life's first laurels in his eager hands 

Down the dim slope of death he went 
away, — 
Lingering not here disconsolate, as they 
Who wait and watch the ebbing of the sands 
Of time, he suddenly broke the bitter bands 
That bind the soul within its coil of clay, 
And, with no single hope or faith grown gray 
Passed, blithe and young, into the Golden Lands. 

Hope dies, love withers, memory fails and fades: 
But through the long years' ceaseless ebb and 
flow 

These faint, far echoes from the old Arcades, 
Blown through the reeds of boyhood long ago, 

In sunlit hours in twilight's quiet shades 
Will speak to us of one we used to know. 



75 



Father Ryan 

" The Pilgrim they laid in a large upper chamber 
facing the sunrising. And the name of the chamber 
■was Peace.'' 

Pilgrim's Progress. 

"POLLOWING the Conquered Banner to its doom 
He so loved and sang, it has lain down, 
Wearing a wreath of bay-leaves for a crown, 

Green everlasting, fragrant with perfume. 

In death's enshadowed but all-peaceful room, 
In the South 's love like a white vesture wound, 
He sleeps with airs of April sighing 'round 

And Easter lilies breaking into bloom. 

Poet! Priest! Voice of the South, whose song 
Was music with love thrilling through the bars, 
Beyond the sunrise where no discord mars 
Thy singing, bear our love for thee as strong 
As thine for the lost banner mourned so long 
With faith as steadfast as its shining stars. 



Old Love Dreams 

I. 

TTU'HITE of the hawthorn, green of the budding 
^^ tree, 
Soft on the air the sorrow of the spring; 
Glamor of sunlit waters murmuring 

Ineffable melodies of the morning sea; 

Perfume of violets over lawn and lea 

Poignant with memor}^ ; golden throats that sing 
High up in heaven the golden notes that bring 

The ghosts of my old love dreams back to me. 
Shadows and shapes of hopes yet unfulfilled, — 
Midnights and morns through whose long hours 
were spilled 

The dreams that make divine the years of youth, — 
Wherein all pure and passionate fancies stir 
Ever about the imagined body of her 

Whose face is beauty and whose soul is truth. 

II. 

They were not of the dreams that can come true: 
Illusions of impossible hope whose goal 
No human heart hath reached; beyond control 
Of time and fate. Beneath the vaulted blue 
Of no sweet heaven whose sun and rain and dew 
Have washed and filled the earth from pole to 
pole, 



Was perfect bodily beauty, perfect soul 
Blent in one woman that man ever knew. 

Yet while the ceaseless 3^ears of time shall stream 
Out of God's hand b}^ every sea and shore 

Whereon the golden stars of hope can gleam, 
Whereon the bitter rains of grief can pour, 

Shall men still follow the fair fleeting dream 
Till the day dawns when they can dream no more. 



78 



The Tryst 



I. 
T^HIS is the place — yes, surely the same place: 
Under these trees do not the violets blow 
White as the soul that loved them long aoo 
Where she kneeled down to let them kiss her face ? 
Do not the same thick branches interlace 
Their leaves above to shut away the glow 
Of moonlight ? And breathes not the same wind 
low 
From the same far-off, star-encinctured space? 

Here was the promise made and here I keep 
The tryst. Torn from the whirling years 
Of triumph and laughter, shame and scorn and 
tears, 
I have brought my life back where the violets 
sleep, — 
Life bitter with sorrow, — broken past faiths and 
fears, 
To lay my face down in her flowers and weep. 

II. 
Weep on. She will not know, she cannot hear 
The pulses of a grieving heart that wet 
Her violets with the tears of vain regret; 
She has found flowers and tears and skies more 

dear 
Than those shrined in the memories garnered here : 

79 



Her promise is forgotten. Ah, no, no — for yet 
I hear, though other Hps be dumb or hearts 
forget, — 
The footsteps of one true soul drawing near! 

O, in this very place this hour she stands 
Beside me, lifting up her face to tell 
How the old promise is remembered well: 

Her wraith has come back from the far, sad lands 
To lay on mine her mouth ineffable 

And in my hands the pulses of her hands. 

III. 

Sweetheart! Sweet, patient heart that suffered so 
Because of the wild grief that wrenched m}^ own 
Sweet face whose piteous fairness now has grown 

Into life's tenderest memory, I know 

That never for you and me will violets blow 
Again, or ever summer skies be sown 
With stars that I may watch through soft hair 
blown 

Across my face. Fate wills that I should go 

Without you to the end. But, O, it seems 
There is no power can sever souls that knew 
Once, — nay, once only — how love can be true; 
Ours knew it in this golden light that streams 
Out of heaven's heart,— that glitters through these 
dreams 
Here down among the violets with you. 

80 



On the Tenth Floor 

\TAIN longings for the green fields and the sea. 
For the old sense of loneliness and peace, 

Come amid City sounds that never cease — 
Tumult of trade and traffic under me. 

High overhead the sweet, keen, windless day, — 
Air clear and pure and sky without a stain: — 
Beneath, the ebb and flow of loss and gain 

Amid the unending clangor of Broadway. 

Here between peace above and strife below, 
My soul is like a captive bird whose wings 
Beat time to the disconsolate song it sings, 

Whose sadness only prisoned souls can know, — 
Wild with desire for unattainable things, 

And chief of these is to take flight and go. 



81 



Foreshado wings 

"VOU laugh me down with hght and pitying scorn 
Because I cannot let one sorrow pass: 
You think the air too summer- sweet, the grass 

Too green and fresh, the roseate wind-stirred morn 

Too golden with the light of joy new-born 
For grief to cloud the soul's translucent glass 
With breath of bitter lips that cry: "Alas! 

Where have the old days and the old hopes gone?" 

Ah, sweet, I am no prophet of evil, — ^3^et 
I know a day will come at time's sure call 

When you, O radiant mocker at regret, 

Will cry, as from 3^our hand love's flowers fall, 

While those divine eyes, shadowless now, grow wet: 
"I know at last,^I understand it all!" 



82 



At the Sunrise Watch 

nrHROUGH the still hush of the night 

Where the far, white star-beams burn, 
Up toward their fading light 

In the last dim watch I yearn; 
All earth's dreams are dead in me, 

As long since earth's hopes have died; 

"Lord, forever at Thy side 
Let my place and portion be." 

As the shadows pass away, — 

As the long, sad vigils cease. 
Through the gateways of the day 

Lift me to Thy perfect peace; 
Wash me by Thy sunrise sea 

Pure in Calvary's flowing tide: 

"Strip me of the robe of x^ride 
Clothe me with humility." 

Other faiths have failed me here: 

Other friends have passed me by: 
Now I turn toward the sphere 

Where one friendship will not die, — 
From this soul's Gethsemane 

With all passions crucified: 

"Lord, forever at thy side 
Let my place and portion be." 

83 



Within the Port 

TXTE have flung the oars ashore and the voyage 
is ended: 
We have anchored the boat to toss on the tide 
no more; 
Blown into the port at last by the favoring winds 
befriended, 
We have flung the oars ashore. 

Far from the cruel storm-wrack, far from the 

breakers' roar, 
We rest in the long-sought haven from the angry 

sea defended: 
We have found the peace of the waters wild 

winds never wander o'er. 

Ah well, but the seas were grand and the skies 
were splendid 
As we watched the waves run white and the rain 
arid lightning pour! 
Farewell now unto the ways and waters through 
which we wended — 
We have flung the oars ashore. 



84 



iov 24 mm 



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